I stepped through the doorway and everything changed.

I fought to interpret my new surroundings. The realm where my thoughts created reality was gone. That little corner of the realm had been my own, a place where reality was shaped by me alone.

Many, many others shaped this new place. I sensed them in the distance as they swirled through the aether like leaves on the wind.

Apparently I could still reference Serenity in purgatory. Huh.

I floated past them without letting their stray thoughts ensnare me in their beliefs. They were distant screams forming a rioting cacophony, but I pushed them away. It was all in my mind—our minds—since this place was made of pure thought.

With so many different consciousness’, there was no single, definable idea to be found. It was a jumble without order. Wisps of gray smoke floated around me and in the void, I found fragments of a structure or piece of land.

Part of a house, walls collapsed, with a woman sitting inside, sobbing.

A stretch of grass where a man wandered without aim.

The echo of a battlefield where a soldier fought an invisible foe.

Final thoughts of the moment of their death, trapped as they clung to some semblance of the reality they’d left behind.

The focus I’d learned helped me maintain a sense of self as I moved past them all. It would have been easy to forget where I ended and they began, but I knew who I was. I was determined to reach my goal.

My feet touched a black expanse of twisted rock. I tapped it with my heel, testing its strength. It was no longer the ever-shifting landscape of my spirit realm, but so many minds had created the smoky world around me that it was hard to trust the ground beneath my feet.

Farther ahead, fires spewed from the rocky landscape and ash and sulfur filled the air. Distant screams announced the endless suffering of countless souls tormented in the afterlife.

The boundaries of Hell.

I moved forward and drew my sword, my mind manipulating this strange world. Here, it would be harder to ignore pain by believing it didn’t hurt. This place was made to hurt for all eternity.

Uncle Luc could bend this place to his will, but I wasn’t strong enough. Better to keep my weapon in hand and put my faith in its existence.

I stalked across Hell’s landscape, searching for any other creature and finding none. No dems or humans. Not at the outer boundaries. I was too far from the heart of Uncle Luc’s domain.

Closer to the center, the world would descend into the pit of the abyss, the deeper levels holding the worst sinners of history. Here at the edge I’d only find a few stragglers. That made it a bit safer. Although ‘safe’ wasn’t really a word that could apply in Hell.

The terrain grew rockier the deeper I delved. I climbed down a steep slope covered in jagged boulders. The air around me sizzled even though I couldn’t sweat. Cracks in the ground appeared at random, spewing flames and ash. The world was choked with the burnt remnants of sinners and it took me a moment to remember I didn’t need to breathe.

It wasn’t a concern. Right.

The sky crackled with a flare of blue light and I stopped in my tracks, attention on the lightshow. A brief shimmer of translucent faces drifted across the midnight sky and distant voices reached out to me. Muffled as if they passed through water. My chest tightened as if something pressed down on me. I remained in place for a moment, fighting to focus on the source, but the light faded and the sky turned black once more.

I continued my journey, letting my instincts guide me through my uncle’s domain.

A stray thelac demon wandered across my path, his black skin hardened from bathing in the magma of the blasted landscape. He spun with a snarl, claws raised, and I lifted my blade, ready for the fight.

Then those eyes met mine and he paused, blinking with surprise. The dem took a step back and touched a claw to his chest as he bowed. “Forgive me, Highness.”

“Huh.” I lowered my blade. I hadn’t been expecting that response. I mean, yeah, I’m the princess of Hell, but I didn’t realize I’d be recognized so easily.

The dem dropped to one knee. “How may I serve you, mistress?”

Mistress. I’d never been into BDSM but I kinda liked the sound of that. Mistress.

I sheathed my sword and studied the dem, unsure if I should trust him or if his inevitable betrayal was just a matter of time. Dems weren’t big on keeping their word, but they did respect power. I had a lot of that. I also had faith—look at that, Papa Leth—that something guided me. Out of the infinite hellscape, I’d landed here.

I straightened my spine and pulled my shoulders back. “Take me to the sigil.”

“Yes, mistress.”

No way it could be that easy. No. Way.

I kept my eyes on the demon, following him deeper into Hell. The farther we traveled, the more dems we gathered until I had a sizable contingent surrounding me.

Which was about the time it occurred to me that if they planned to attack I was pretty fucked. But I doubted any of them wanted to tussle with Satan’s niece. It wouldn’t end well for them.

A familiar yip and nudge drew my attention and I looked down to find a massive, black-furred hellhound at my side.

Reggie.

I patted his giant head. “Looks like you made it home okay, sweet boy.”

Odd to call a hellhound sweet, but he really was.

Reggie’s tongue lolled out and he gave me a big doggie grin. Despite being nearly as big as a bull and possessed of hellfire breath, he was just a puppy at heart.

I was glad to have a familiar presence at my side while we continued. Soon the terrain ceased leading us down and rose. The dems fell back, leaving me to continue on my own. Only Reggie remained at my side.

I hiked up the mountain slope, climbing above the black, twisted landscape around me. It rose so high I could no longer see the ground below. The sky above crackled with lighting and gouts of flame that rose from the mountaintop shot into the clouds.

Eventually I reached the peak and the ground leveled into a flat plateau. There in the center, sitting on an ebony throne, a single figure waited.

My mother.

“Is this the real you?” I raised a single brow. “Or another projection of my thoughts like my fathers?”

The sky seemed to answer as another flash of light streaked through the darkness above. Reggie threw his head back and howled at the storm. Voices cried out from the sky, carried by the momentary flash of light. Like thunder that followed a crackling lightning storm.

Blurry faces appeared above me, floating like clouds. I thought I recognized one. I strained to hear the voices, make out their words, but the light and sound faded.

My mother watched the flash as it played across the sky and then she turned her gaze on me. “I’m very real.” She crossed her legs at the knee. “I’m glad you finally found me. I’ve been waiting a long time.”

Reggie sat at my side, his attention on my mother. I wasn’t sure if he was wary of her, but he didn’t seem to like her very much.

I stalked forward, circling the throne while I kept a close eye on the infernal woman who had birthed me. She rose and turned in place, her body tense.

“Time?” I snarled the word. “Does time matter here?”

“Yes and no.” She spoke and another flash of light played out across the sky, the voices cried out once again.

“That’s not much of an answer.”

She pressed her palms together. “I know it’s hard to understand, Caith. Think of it as a video game and you’ve pressed pause.”

Huh. Somehow my mother knew about video games.

The faces appeared and she gestured at them. “There are moments when Hell touches reality and in those moments, time passes.” The light faded, leaving us in darkness once more. “When our connection to the physical realm ebbs, time ceases. At least, time as mortals understand it.”

I looked at the sky once more as another flicker of electricity filled the air. The faces became more distinct each time. “It looks like time is playing more than pausing.”

“This is a unique situation,” my mother said. “Someone is reaching across the veil, trying to get to you. As long as it remains open, the connection between Hell and the mortal world is stronger. We become a part of that reality.”

“Someone?” Finally a face was discernable in that glowing sky. “Keller.”

I spat on the ground. Even in death, I couldn’t escape him.

“He has grown quite powerful.” Mother moved toward me as if she floated over the ground. She stopped just outside arm’s reach. “Not powerful enough to move against me or your uncle, but enough to cause great harm to the world. Unless you stop him.”

I grunted like Papa Al. “Yeah, I know. He’s looking for the sigil, whatever it is. I came here to get it first.”

“I know,” she drawled. At least I know where I got some of my sarcasm. “I’ve been guiding your journey.”

I glared at her. “Which part? When I got infected and almost turned into a ghoul? Or when I killed myself and had to travel through the spirit realms to find you?”

“Caith…”

“Don’t ‘Caith’ me, Mother.” I spun and stalked away from her. “I should have known you had a hand in this. It’s always like this with you.”

I hadn’t seen my mother often since she couldn’t exist in the tween for long, but every time I had seen her… Torment and pain. More than once she’d said I had to endure the pain to grow to my true potential.

What a bunch of bullshit. She liked watching me suffer. She was a sadistic bitch and nothing would ever change her.

Okay, maybe occasionally she had a teeny tiny moment of not-awfulness. She had journeyed to Orlando to help save me from the demon Silaran. She’d sacrificed a lot that day to protect me and had been badly wounded in the process. She’d even lost her ability to manifest on Earth without being summoned for a while.

And she’d done it to save me.

Or maybe to protect her investment. She’d spent a lot of time and energy using dark magic to create me. She had plans and letting me die would have spoiled that work.

“Caith, I want to help you.”

“And I’m supposed to trust you?” I snapped.

The sky crackled, a great clap of thunder echoing across the mountain. Reggie howled and whimpered, lying on the ground and covering his head with his paws. Keller’s voice lived in the thunder and I couldn’t make out what he said. He was getting closer. That much I knew. With each flash in the sky, pressure built in my chest. I wanted it to stop, but I didn’t know what caused it.

“I don’t expect you to trust me, but if you want my help, you’re going to have to move past this.”

“Seriously? Move past it?” I glared. “You want me to forgive the torture? The horrors you made me face? Fuck you very much, Mom.”

“It’s what must be done.”

“Why?” I spread my arms wide. “Why are you making me jump through hoops? Is this another sick game? Just give me the fucking sigil so I can keep it out of Keller’s hands.”

This wasn’t a difficult concept. Why was she not getting it?

As if in response, the sky rumbled once more and Keller’s face appeared above me. He reached for me, fighting to push through the veil. Phantom voices filled my mind, trying to lure me like they had when I’d been alive and infected by the phantom wound. Keller couldn’t cross to get the sigil—not without dying. But could he still reach me, get his hooks into me again, and force my spirit self to be his slave?

I shuddered at the thought. Somehow I knew the only way to stop him was to get the sigil first. Something in my gut told me it would keep me safe from Keller’s influence.

It would make me a badass motherfucker.

“I don’t make the rules, Caith.” She clasped her hands before her, a plea in her eyes. “This power is ancient, older than me. I can’t control its power. I can only help you access it.”

“What the ever-loving fuck does that mean?” I shouted. I was sick of this cryptic bullshit. “Look, is it here or not?”

This was not a difficult question.

My mother sighed and shook her head. “You’re thinking in terms of the physical world. The sigil isn’t an object, a hidden treasure. Haven’t you learned anything in your time here?”

I groaned. My brain decided to make sense of my time here. The real reason for my spirit journey. Mother was right. I had been thinking in terms of the physical. I traveled by foot, climbing the mountain and expecting my prize to be waiting for me at the top.

But Hell, no matter how tangible, was still shaped by thought and belief. There was no map to a buried treasure with an X marking the spot. Nothing was real, no more than the swords strapped to my back.

They were manifestations of my thoughts.

So the sigil could be nothing more than… a manifestation of a belief. What belief?

I paced in front of my mother, sorting through my thoughts. “So if the sigil doesn’t exist in the way I thought it did… It’s not something I can hold in my hand, but thoughts exist. Beliefs exist. I just can’t touch them.”

Mother nodded. “It represents power. Ascension to a new level of existence. Evolution from what you are now to what you are destined to become.”

I stopped and looked around the blackened mountaintop. “If it’s nothing more than a belief I can ascend to something greater, what the fuck am I doing here?”

A small, sad smile teased my mother’s lips. “Facing what has been holding you back.”

Fuck me sideways, it hit me. I knew the reason I had to be here and speaking to my mother of all people. She hadn’t only given birth to me. She used the magics of the underworld to create me from the DNA of five different men—five different types of power. All so she could infuse me with abilities beyond what anyone else in the world had ever achieved.

I was a long way from becoming what she wanted and that was because… I’d fought it.

I hated my mother for how hard she’d pushed me, for what she’d put me through in my youth. The torture. The torment. Everything she’d taken.

So I could be stronger. So I could be prepared for the things to come.

I’d always resented her for it.

And as long as I resented her, I fought what she had planned. I fought the power she wanted me to achieve and I’d never get it unless I stopped fighting her.

Unless I forgave her.

I shook my head and tears welled in my eyes. I knew my spirit form shouldn’t be able to cry just like I didn’t need to eat or breathe. I simply didn’t have another way to express my feelings.

“This isn’t fair.”

My mother chuckled. “Who said life, or death, is fair?”

The sky crackled and Keller’s hand reached for me, the air bending and warping around his form. He was almost through the veil.

“Do I have to mean it? I don’t suppose I can just say the words without meaning them, can I?”

She snorted. “In a place shaped by belief?”

“Yeah,” I sighed. “I knew it wouldn’t be that simple.”

A girl could hope though.

I sensed the weight of Keller’s hands on me—pressing against my chest as if he had me pinned. Even if he wasn’t in the spirit world, I could feel his touch.

“Just tell me why.” I wasn’t going to meet my mother’s eyes while I was pleading for an answer. “Why did you do this to me?”

“So you could achieve great things,” she replied as if it were so simple.

I shook my head. “No. Why have a daughter? I wasn’t an accident. I was planned. Why? How are you going to use me?”

A sad smile touched her lips and my mother lowered her head. “You think I did this to use you? Because I have some ‘grand plan’?”

“What else could it be?” I threw my hands in the air. “Why put so much effort into creating me if you didn’t have an end game?”

People like my mother always had end games.

“The same reason any mother has raised a child since the dawn of time. I wanted you to have the opportunities I never had.”

I finally lifted my head and met her eyes. She could visit the tween, but never stay, trapped in a place of eternal torment. She hadn’t wanted that for me. She hadn’t wanted me to be damned.

I’d always assumed that, just by being her daughter, I was destined for Hell. But my human Crusader father—the first of the five—gave me a gift that saved me from that fate. I had mortal blood, human as well as demon. I had a soul, unlike my mother. Being mortal meant that I had free will.

I had a choice.

I’d never made that choice. I’d lived life as a sinner since I figured I was destined for Hell anyway. I might as well embrace my future and enjoy the present, but I wasn’t stuck on that path. I could fight for redemption or I could let myself be damned.

Even more important, I could walk the line and remain balanced between the two. There was no reason I had to decide now, either. I had eternity to walk that path.

“You wanted me to be able to choose,” I said, my voice a bare whisper.

She touched my arm. “And today, you get to make one of the most important choices you’ll ever face.”

More tears. They weren’t real, but the emotions that coursed through me were. I didn’t think anymore. I wrapped my arms around my mother and held her tightly, taking comfort from the woman who’d always given me anything but.

“Thank you.”

“I would do anything for you, Caith.” She stroked my hair. “Even when it meant hurting you in the process.”

“I get it,” I rasped. “I don’t like it, but I get it.”

“Then you’re ready.” She faded, her body melting away from my grasp like vapor.

I spun, searching for him, and watched as Reggie turned into nothingness. The ground beneath me faded as well and…

It wasn’t them that disappeared, it was me.

My chest burned, the pain flaring into overwhelming agony. A hard pressure pounded me in a steady rhythm. Lips touched mine, air passing into my mouth, and I gasped as the stale oxygen filled my lungs.